BACKGROUND Cream alternatives are known from a great number of publications such as e. g. the following references: EP 294119, wherein whippable creams are disclosed that contain a fat based on a mix of lauric fats with a ratio between solid fat content at 15 and 25°C of more than 1.5. From EP 540085 and EP 540087 soured spoonable cream alternatives are known based on fat mixtures of liquid oil and hardened lauric fats, while also some butterfat can be present. From WO 03/043430 spreadable cream alternatives are known that display a Stevens hardness of 100 to 500 grams, whereas the fat applied according to the examples is either a liquid oil or a mixture of liquid oil and hardened coconut oil and a palm oil fraction. This total fat has an Nlo= 5-95, an N20 = 1-50 and an N35 = 0-10, and can be steep melting, as calculated from its N20 and N25 values (examples 2 and 3). WO 430 discloses that the fat mixture can contain dairy fat in an amount up to 45 wt%, however this is not exemplified.

Furthermore, the compositions illustrated by the examples contain 0.7 wt% of gelatine.

Gelatine is commonly added to water-continuous emulsions to control the oral melting behaviour and the mouthfeel. Indeed we found that compositions without gelatine often display less acceptable mouthfeel. However the addition of gelatine to cream alternatives also has a number of drawbacks such as the cream is usually no longer kosher and creams wherein gelatine is present are less accepted nowadays by the consumer.

Mouthfeel may also be improved by the addition of butterfat, however we found that addition of butterfat to the compositions according to the examples of WO'430 results in compositions that still do not display a good mouthfeel.

Summary of the invention It is an objective of the present invention to provide a spreadable and/or spoonable cream alternative that is free of gelatine but still displays a good mouthfeel and oral melting behaviour. Another objective of the invention provides for an oral melting behaviour and mouthfeel of the cream alternative which are not, or at least less, affected by the absence of gelatine in contrast to the prior art cream alternatives. Moreover, another objective of the invention is to have a product with no to little syneresis.

Surprisingly, it has been found that one or more of the above objectives can be attained by the use of a steep melting fat comprising butterfat and a vegetable fat blend in cream alternatives without gelatine. The cream alternatives according to the invention still display good mouthfeel despite the omission of gelatine.

Detailed description In a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a spreadable and/or spoonable water-continuous, gelatine free cream alternative comprising 10 to 50 wt% of a fat blend and up to 5 wt% of a biopolymer other than gelatine as a thickener, in addition to water as continuous phase, which cream displays a Stevens value at 5°C (S5) of more than 100 gram, in particular of 100 to 440 gram, wherein the fat blend comprises vegetable fat (s) and 5 to 75 wt%, preferably 15 to 70 wt% and most preferably 25 to 60 wt% dairy fat, which fat blend displays a solid fat content at 5°C (N5) and at 15°C (N15) such that the ratio between N15 and N5 (i. e. N15/N5) is less than 0.60, preferably less than 0.55 and most preferably less than 0.50 Amounts of dairy fat are on total fat blend in cream alternative.

The cream-alternatives of the present invention are gelatine free. For the purpose of the invention gelatine free means that there has been essentially no gelatine added to the cream alternative.

The fat of the present invention is a steep melting fat.

The solid fat content may be described in terms of Nt, wherein N is the amount of solids in wt% on total fat at temperature t. The amount of solid fat may suitably be measured with NMR. The fat mixtures that are applied preferably have an N5 of 45 to 60, an N15 of 20 to 38 and an N30 of 0.5 to 3.0

Spoonable creams are also disclosed in EP 691080 and in an earlier WO application 03/086106. However in these documents the use of the steep melting fats is not disclosed.

The hardness of the product may be described in terms of St wherein S is the Stevens value in grams at a temperature t.

Preferred creams display Stevens values of 250g to 430g at 5°C and of 175g to 225g at 15°C and of 35g to 75g, most preferably 50g to 75g at 30°C. The most preferred creams have a ratio between S15 and S5 of 0.50 to 0.70 and a ratio between S30 and S5 of 0.10 to 0.25.

The biopolymer is preferably selected from the group consisting of guar gum, carrageenan, locust bean gum, taragum or mixtures thereof.

Although the cream alternatives may be any cream alternative based on a water-continuous fat emulsion, preferred products are soured cream-type products and most preferred are soured creams having a pH of less than 5. 0, in particular a pH of 3 to 4.8. A suitable embodiment of the preferred creams are cream cheese type products.

Although the creams of the present invention may comprise an emulsifier selected from the common group of emulsifiers used in water-continuous emulsions, preferred creams according to the present invention are essentially free of emulsifiers. For the purpose of the invention essentially free of emulsifiers means that preferably less than 0.01 wt% of emulsifier is present in the cream alternative.

The fat blend of the present invention comprises dairy fat and vegetable fat (s). Suitable vegetable fats in the fat blends are typically vegetable fats comprising (i) a liquid oil and/or (ii) a soft palm oil fraction and (iii) a fully hardened high lauric fat and/or (iv) a SOS and/or SSO rich fat Wherein S represents a C16 and/or C18 saturated fatty acid residue and O an oleic acid.

The fat blend comprises a vegetable liquid oil, a soft palm oil fraction or both. The fat blend also comprises a vegetable fully hardened high lauric fat, a vegetable SOS and/or SSO rich fat or both.

The liquid oil herein may be selected from the group consisting of rape seed oil; sunflower oil; high oleic sunflower oil; soybean oil; cotton seed oil; maize oil; safflower oil and olive oil, although other vegetable liquid oils may be applied as well.

The soft palm oil fraction may be a palm oil olein, in <BR> <BR> particular having an (SOO + 03) -content of more than 25 wt% (S and O as defined above) The fully hardened lauric fat preferably is a hardened palm kernel oil with melting point of 38 to 39°C and/or a hardened coconut oil with melting point 31 to 33°C and most preferably has an Iodine Value of less than 5.0, most preferably less than 2.0.

The SOS and/or SSO rich fat is preferably selected from allanblackia, pentadesma, cocoa butter, or fractions thereof or from cocoa butter equivalents (CBE) such as palm oil mid fractions.

Most preferred, the vegetable fat in the fat blend comprise components (A and/or B) and (C and/or D) such that A is the liquid oil and is present in an amount of 0 to 80 wt% B is the soft palm oil fraction and is present in an amount of 0 to 80 wt%, C is the hardened lauric fat and is present in an amount of 0 to 90 wt% and D is the SOS and/or SSO rich fat and is present in an amount of 0 to 90 wt%, wherein the amount of (A + B) is more than 10 wt% and the amount of (C + D) is more than 20 wt%. Weight percentages are relative to total vegetable fat in fat blend.

Preferred cream alternatives have a biopolymer present in the form of a biopolymer phase wherein the volume fraction of the biopolymer phase is preferably less than 0. 1. In general water exudation from the product, also known as syneresis, is smaller when the biopolymer in the product is concentrated in a small volume, i. e. a smaller biopolymer phase. The biopolymer in compositions according to WO'430, i. e. gelatine, is present in a biopolymer phase. The biopolymer phase of the composition of WO'430 has a volume fraction from 0.2 to 0.5.

The present invention also concerns a new use of a fat blend according to the present invention and may be defined as the use of a fat blend comprising vegetable fat and 5 to 75 wt% of dairy fat on total fat blend and displaying an N5 and an N15 such that the ratio between N15 and N5 is less than 0.60 in water-continuous cream alternatives to improve the mouthfeel of the cream alternative in the absence of gelatine.

Experimental General The parameters mentioned in this application are well known product parameters and can be measured by well known techniques.

The solid fat content (%) can be measured by a suitable analytical method such as NMR and is measured on the fat only. The method used is low resolution NMR with Bruker Minispec apparatus. Reference is made to the Bruker minispec application notes 4,5 and 6.

The percentage of solid fat determined by the low resolution NMR technique is defined as the ratio of the response obtained from the hydrogen nuclei in the solid phase and the response arising from all the hydrogen nuclei in the sample. The product of this ratio and one hundred is termed the low resolution NMR solids percent. No correction is made for variations in the proton density between solid and liquid phase. The NMR solids percent for a sample measured at t °C was given the symbol Nt.

Suitable instruments adapted to determine the solids fat content are the Bruker Minispecs p20itm, pc20tm, pc120tm, pc120stm, NMS120tm and MQ20.

Stabilisation and tempering procedure was as follows: melt fat at 80 °C 5 minutes at 60 °C about 1 day at 0 °C 30-35 minutes at each chosen measuring temperature.

The solid fat content measurement as used herein is described in AOCS official method Cd 16b-93 (direct method, parallel).

Stevens values (in gram) is a measure for the firmness of a product, and was determined by measuring the force required to penetrate a cylindrical probe in the product, i. e. cream alternative. A sample height of 5 cm; a probe of 0.5 inch; a penetration speed of 2.0 mm/sec and a penetration depth of 10 mm was used.

The samples are stored for 7 days at 5 °C, and stored at 5, 10,20, 25, or 35 °C for 4 h before the firmness measurement.

Iodine values can be measured according to the well known method based on iodine absorption (AOCS (1978) Official and Tentative Methods of the American Oil Chemists'Society, 3rd ed.).

Biopolymer phase volume is measured by a centrifugation method. The product was poured into tubes and centrifuged

at about 1.000 to 5.000 g at 30 °C until phase separation was complete. The preferred force is around 3.000 g. Phase volumes for upper biopolymer-rich and lower protein-rich phase were quantified for each tube.

Example 1 Comparative examples 1-3 Water phase and fat phase ingredients, except for acids and thickeners/gelatine, were mixed at about 60 °C. After mixing, the composition was pasteurised at 85°C for 10 minutes, and cooled down to 44°C, after which homogenisation at 200 bar took place. To the homogenised composition acid was added, until a pH of about 4.8 was reached, then the thickener/gelatine was added. Followed by heating the mixture to 85 °C. The obtained product was homogenised at 300 bar, and subsequently heated to a temperature of 75°C for filling the small containers. The product was cooled down to below 10°C and stored at chill temperature.

The ingredients used in the different compositions (both according to the invention (experiment 1) and of the comparative examples (Cl, C2, C3) are given in Table 1.

Stevens values are representative of the hardness of the product at a given temperature. Both the Stevens values and the ratio of S15/S5 and S30/S5 are indicative for the oral melting behaviour and the mouthfeel of the product.

Preferred creams display Stevens values of 250g to 430g at 5°C and of 175g to 225g at 15°C and of 35g to 75g, most preferably 50g to 75g at 30°C. The most preferred creams have a ratio between S15 and Ss of 0.50 to 0.70 and a ratio between S30 and S5 of 0.10 to 0. 25.

TABLE 1 Type % N-line fat Thicke Stevens value Sls/ss S30/ of fat fat 50C 15°C 30°C N1s/Ns ner (%) Ss Sis XS30 Cl butter 22 64 41 6.8 0.64 0. 86% 395 238 22.5 0.60 0.06 fat Gelatine /0. 21% guar gum C2 Butter 22 64 41 6.8 0.64 0.143% 227 157 49.5 0.69 0.22 fat Carragee nan/ 0. 475% LBG 1 50% 22 58 29 2.4 0.50 0.143% 359 207 66 0.58 0.18 butter Carragee fat nan/ 50% 0. 475% veg LBG fat C3 50% 22 58 29 2.4 0.50 0.86% 450 265 42 0.59 0. 09 butter Gelatine fat/0. 21% 50% guar gum veg fat *

* vegetable fat consists of 40% fully hardened coconut oil, 40% dry fractionated palm olein fraction (Iodine value 55) and 20 % rape seed oil.

As can be seen from the table the cream alternative according to the invention displays the desired mouthfeel despite the absence of gelatine.